


The Candlemaker

by Misaya



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Bad Ending, Bottom Kylo Ren, Dark, Dystopia, Established Relationship, Frottage, Horror, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Sexual Content, Sleeping Bag Sex, Top Hux, Winter, With A Twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-22 14:06:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6082239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misaya/pseuds/Misaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The candlemaker disappears in the middle of the night, and people do not start to worry until their worlds start going dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Exposition

**Author's Note:**

> Written to: [Ophelia: The Lumineers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjNlm1_YJsQ)

The candlemaker disappears in the middle of the night, and leaves behind the smell of ashes and the cloying scent of pressed flowers embedded in wax. He goes by the name of Snoke, and from what people remember, his skin is the same color and consistency of the candles he produces and sells in the market stalls, dispensing the smooth uniform cylinders into chapped hands reddened from the cold and the hard work of wresting life from the stubborn earth. But this patch of ground is theirs, all fifty square miles of it, and it’s safe and fenced in from the monsters outside, the ones that drove generations long gone into the safety of walls of rusted bricks and barbed wire. They’ve lived here and died here for so many years that no one remembers what they are supposed to be scared of, only that they should feel fear when the sun starts to set.

At first, no one is worried. There are fifty square miles to comb over, after all, and everyone is sure that he will show up somewhere. Holed up in a back alley tavern, slumped over a stained crystal glass reeking of sharply distilled moonshine. Visiting the pleasure houses illuminated with dim crimson on the outskirts of the city.

“What if he’s gone outside?” Kylo asks his parents one night, by the flickering light of one of their candles from their store. His father, Han, frowns at the thin soup in front of him, but spoons it into his mouth regardless. His mother, Leia, tuts in disapproval as she stirs the broth the ration centers had given out that morning. Kylo stares at the dim liquid, cloudy, a sheen of watery oil glistening on the top, and wonders if maybe Hux from three blocks down has gotten chunks of potato in his, too. “He could have.”

“He could have,” Leia admits after a moment, sighing heavily as she plops her bowl down next to Kylo’s elbow. The roughly hewn bench jostles slightly as she sits down. “But Ben –“

“Kylo.” Kylo interrupts her before she can finish speaking, not even flinching as Han shoots him a glare across the table. It’s growing dark, and the weak light of the guttering candle lodged into a tarnished tin holder in the middle of the table barely illuminates his father’s expression. “I’d rather be called Kylo.”

Leia sighs, presses on. “There’s no reason for him to go outside. There’s nothing for us out there. No food, no shelter. No light.”

Kylo rolls his eyes, spoons up a mouthful of soup. It’s bland, tasteless, the potato dissolving against his tongue the instant it’s in his mouth. Still, the hunger gnaws in the pit of his belly, and before he knows it, his spoon is scraping at the bottom of the bowl with a grating noise and he’s asking Leia if there’s more.

She shakes her head with a small frown, pursing her lips, and Kylo knows not to ask again. The winter has been particularly harsh, snow layering itself in thick drifts across the stone buildings and freezing icy on the porch, and people curl together in the middle of the night for heat. Kylo prefers spending the nights at the tiny apartment Hux shares with his father. Hux is a furnace burning up from the inside out, with flame colored hair, and every time Kylo crawls onto the sagging mattress Hux sleeps on, the stuffing dipping towards the center under his weight, it feels like coming home.

He pushes back from the table now, standing up. His shadow falls across the room, too tall and too dark, and he tries to wave away the thickening claustrophobia he feels.

“Where are you going?” Han asks him gruffly, as Kylo rinses out his bowl with chilly water in the steel sink and sets it to the side to dry; it’ll have a thin film of frost in the morning. “Are you going to see that boy again?”

“It’s Hux,” Kylo says, sighing impatiently. “And yes.”

Han clears his throat, something disparaging on the tip of his tongue, no doubt, but Kylo can hear the sound of Leia swatting at Han’s arm lightly, and whatever Han’s about to say disappears, dissolves into the air. “Fine,” he mutters instead, and Kylo sends a nod their way as he pulls his black threadbare coat off the peg by the front door and spills out into the cold night. The stars and moon glare down at him from the dark blanket of the night, frosty and hard, and Kylo shivers, rubbing his hands together and blowing warm streams of air onto his chilled fingers, rubbing at red, raw knuckles as he hurries the three blocks to Hux’s apartment. His footsteps click on the pavement, the sharp noises echoing off the corners of buildings and through deserted streets, and from the corners of his eyes, Kylo can see ragged curtains twitching aside in curiosity, wondering who might be out at this hour. But he knows his way to Hux’s by heart, and his steps lead him there quickly.

Hux opens the door at the first knock, looking thoroughly unsurprised to find Kylo shivering on his doorstep. He reaches out, grabbing a fistful of Kylo’s pilled sweater, pulling him in. His father is already snoring deeply, a roaring motor, on the sagging couch in the living room, and they tiptoe quietly past him into Hux’s bedroom, where Hux closes the door with a soft, firm click before turning to Kylo and dragging him down for a kiss that sends the inferno racing straight to the pit of Kylo’s belly.

Kylo’s grateful for the warmth Hux’s fingers provide, working the opalescent buttons on his jacket through their slots and pushing the fabric off Kylo’s shoulders. It’s dark in Hux’s room, nearly the color of pitch, but they know their ways around each other’s bodies far too well, and once his fingers have some feeling back in them, Kylo reaches beneath the hem of Hux’s sweater. Chilly palms against fiery skin, and Hux sucks in a breath through clenched teeth as he fists his fingers against the roots of Kylo’s dark hair and pulls him into a kiss that’s more of a brutal claiming than anything else. Hux tastes nothing like the thin watery soup served out at rations today, and Kylo licks his way into Hux’s mouth as much as Hux will let him, rubbing circles into the smooth skin of Hux’s abdomen and tracing the ridges of his ribs with the pads of his fingers. Hux moans gritty into Kylo’s mouth, and the heat and lust arrows straight into the pit of his belly as one of Hux’s hands works its way underneath Kylo’s shirt and sweater, burning a path up to his racing pulse. Hux’s fingers pinch at one nipple, rolling it stiff and pebbled and prickling with sensitivity, and the desperation swamps him.

Kylo wriggles away from Hux’s grasp, gasping, his mouth wet and swollen as he begins to tug his clothes off frantically. He pulls his shirt and sweater over his head, dropping them in an unceremonious puddle of fabric to the side of Hux’s door, his hands darting to the front of his pants to palm at himself frantically as his fingers, clumsy with hopeless arousal, try to work at the button and zip. The rustle of clothes and heavy breathing tell him that Hux is doing the same thing, mere feet away from him, and Kylo wonders if he’ll be able to convince the other man to do it all over again when the first faint milky dredges of morning come spilling through the windows again. It’s been so long since he’s seen the creamy planes of Hux’s skin in the light of day.

“Bed,” Hux breathes, frantic, urgent, and Kylo makes his way blindly to the sagging mattress on the floor. Its springs creak wildly beneath him as he sits down, working his way out of his pants and boxers and tossing them over to another corner of the room where they land with a soft whump. Hux’s hand seeks him out, patting blindly at his hair, trailing down his face tentatively, a lover’s caress planted across the swell of his lower lip with the pad of Hux’s thumb. Getting bearings.

Hux’s mouth comes down on his cheek first, searching for his mouth, and Kylo helps him, tilting his face so Hux’s lips are sealed on his again. Kylo groans into the kiss as Hux’s other hand comes up to cradle his head, almost tender.

They break apart, heated exhalations and heavy breaths, their foreheads pressed together and eyes wide open as though they can see. Kylo can feel the intensity of Hux’s stare, and he can only imagine the weight of heated blue on him.

“I missed you,” Hux mutters, his voice raspy, undone, and Kylo swallows roughly. Now isn’t the time for smart quips or sassy retorts. He hasn’t seen Hux in almost a week, some silly dispute whose subject he can no longer remember now, it’s so far gone.

“I did, too,” he whispers back, and he wonders if Hux admits this now only because Kylo can’t see his expression. “Hux, I –“ His next words are shushed, Hux’s index finger pressed against his lips. Hux’s father grunts in the next room, his snores cutting off, and Kylo holds his breath, praying that the older man isn’t awake and isn’t heading to Hux’s room at this very moment. His pulse settles, slowly, slowly, as his snores resume, heavy and deep.

Hux breathes out a sigh of relief before nudging Kylo back onto the bed, onto the worn cotton sheets, the springs groaning in protest as Hux clambers over him. Kylo accepts his kisses once again, their bodies fitting neatly against each other as they always have, and he moans breathy as the heat and weight of Hux’s cock nudges against the swell of his hip. Hux reaches into the tight space between them to wrap his fingers around Kylo’s burgeoning flesh, stroking it with practiced rhythm until Kylo is hard and squirming beneath him, flushed with sensitivity.

“Hux, please,” Kylo begs, laying kisses and bites on every inch of skin that he can get to. Hux returns them in kind, rough sharp nips to the slender column of Kylo’s neck, his shoulder, dipping down to suck and bite his nipples into rosy hardness as Kylo’s hands tug Hux’s hair into disarray. “Hux, please.” He places emphasis heavy on the entreaties, hoping it’ll encourage Hux to fuck him sooner rather than later; it’s been a long week, shivering on his mattress back home and pressing lonely fingers into himself that aren’t nearly enough. It’s never enough, not without Hux’s fire to stoke sparks in him.

“Patience,” Hux whispers, his words damp against Kylo’s heated skin, but Kylo can hear the urgency in Hux’s voice, and he grins almost deliriously as the mattress shifts beneath him, Hux reaching out to the nightstand to root around for the bottle of oil in the drawer. The drawer slides open with a rasp, Hux’s fingers scrabbling around the wooden bottom, and Kylo waits impatiently, propping himself up on his elbows to lave Hux’s chest with kisses. Hux’s breath chokes in his throat, the scrabbling stops for a brief moment, and Hux lets out a soft wanton sigh as Kylo catches one of Hux’s nipples in his mouth, sucking and nipping. One of his hands comes up to trace at the slender curve of Hux’s back, stroking appreciatively, and Hux allows it for the few moments it takes him to find the oil, pulling it triumphantly out of the drawer and leaning forward to give Kylo a peck on the mouth that’s there and gone too quickly for Kylo to register. The cap on the vial pops open, a sharp sound like a gunshot in the quiet of the night, the sound of Hux’s fingers slicking up bringing a wave of heat to Kylo’s cheeks in anticipation.

He tilts his hips up into Hux’s touch as Hux pushes at the inside of his thighs with his unsullied hand, spreading them sweet and easy in surrender. Fingers paint at his entrance, massaging the muscle until it blossoms to the touch, and Kylo sucks in a breath as Hux starts to nudge a finger into him, the motions smooth and steady and so seamless Kylo barely feels the stretch. A second finger follows quickly; Kylo’s been making the most of his time alone, but there’s something so much more erotic, something so much more satisfying when Hux is the one filling him.

Hux’s fingers crook inside him, massaging tentative around him, finding the firm nub of his prostate and rubbing. Kylo’s cock twitches between his thighs, and he bites at the inside of his cheek to keep himself from crying out, the jolt of pleasure sudden and unexpected and intense. His fingers fist in the sheets, and he clutches greedily around Hux’s fingers.

Hux chuckles, the sound settling into the shells of Kylo’s ears like the echoes of an ocean he has never heard, and he presses a third finger into Kylo’s accepting body, stretching him in preparation. His fingertips curl into Kylo’s prostate, sending white jolts of pleasure dancing like phosphenes behind Kylo’s tightly closed eyelids, and his breaths come in huffs and pants and choked off whimpers until he has to reach down and grab at Hux’s wrist to make him stop.

The fingers pause. Confused.

“Too close,” Kylo gasps, trying futilely to take deep breaths to calm his racing pulse. “Wait a bit.”

But Hux is beyond waiting, so it seems, and he works his fingers out of Kylo, popping open the oil again. The wet sounds of his hand working at his cock, coating it slick and smooth, and Kylo takes advantage of the dark and Hux’s preoccupation to reach down and stroke at his cock. It leaks across the pad of his thumb when he swipes the digit over the weeping head, his fingers wrapping around silky skin as he gives himself a few generous pumps that have him sighing in pleasure and rutting up into the curve of his palm.

“No touching,” Hux hisses, slapping at Kylo’s forearm. Kylo pulls away, reluctantly, with a soft pout. The fire is in his blood now, itching with anticipation, drawing a tight knot in the pit of his belly, and he can hardly wait, twitching with eager impatience as Hux reaches down to cup the swell of his hip with slick fingers, hooking one of Kylo’s thighs around his waist.

The head of Hux’s cock breaches him, nudging into him inch by inch, and Kylo claps a hand over his mouth to stifle the sob spilling out of his throat as Hux settles heated weight into him, hips flush against the curve of his ass. He claws desperately at the sheets, at the curve of Hux’s hip, begging Hux for something, anything, in a hushed choked voice that he hardly recognizes as his own.

Hux’s movements are steady, smooth strokes that drive Kylo wild with every thrust that sends the head of Hux’s cock nudging against his prostate.

“Kiss me,” he whispers, sobs, the hand curled in the sheets coming up to pinch and twist at his own nipples. The little jolts of pain crawl into his bloodstream, infectious, and his cock bobs hard and untouched, pressing against the firm planes of Hux’s abdomen as Hux leans forward to fill Kylo’s request. These kisses are rough, teeth and tongue and sloppy, and Kylo is hard pressed to keep from screaming as Hux reaches between them to wrap his fingers around Kylo’s cock. The points of Hux’s incisors pinch at Kylo’s mouth, biting rough and intoxicating, and before Kylo can push him away for air, he’s coming between them with a shout that Hux catches easily in his mouth, swallowing the sound as slick wetness spreads sticky over their skin. The pulses and clenches of Kylo’s orgasm rip Hux’s from him, strong and sharp, and Kylo breathes shakily past the aftershocks as he revels delirious in the feeling of Hux’s cock twitching heavy inside him.

Hux collapses on top of him, the weight and sticky heat more than welcome, and Kylo threads his fingers through Hux’s hair with a soft sigh. He swears he can see his breath steam out of his mouth in silver streams. Hux reaches behind him, lazy slow movements like his cock slipping out of Kylo, dragging the thick layer of blankets up over the two of them.

“Do you think the candlemaker will come back?” Kylo asks, his eyelids growing heavy already. He wants Hux to light the candle stub he knows Hux has on his nightstand, wants to see the flush on Hux’s skin and the bitten swell of his mouth. Hux grunts something into his chest, an affirmative, maybe. A negative, probably. “Do you think he went outside?”

Hux sighs, nestling into the curve of Kylo’s body. “Does it matter?” he asks, his syllables long and languid. “Don’t worry about it. He’ll turn up soon. No one stays outside for long unless they’re dead.”

Kylo’s heart skips a beat at that. “You think he’s outside?” he asks, breathless.

“Well, he’s not in here, is he?” Hux mumbles. “Go to sleep already, Kylo. We’ll worry about the candlemaker another time.”

Kylo hooks his wrists together lightly around the dip of the small of Hux’s back, smooth skin against his palms, and does as Hux commands.


	2. Development

People don’t worry, not at first. As Hux said, no one stays outside for long, and every inch of the city has been picked over with a fine-toothed comb. Snoke will turn up sooner or later. He has to.

But the days turn into weeks, and the weeks turn into a month. People rip off the grubby laminate page of the government-issued calendars, fling them into a greasy bonfire in the town center and huddle around the smoking heat, rubbing their hands together and congratulating each other on surviving another month. The new calendar pages are clean and pristine, waiting for its days to be smudged out, and still the candlemaker does not reappear.

The single month turns into another, and a quiet sense of unease starts to wriggle into people’s hearts and the pits of their bellies, a thrum of panic that they try not to think about. The city falls into the thick of winter, the snow drifting down from the sky like ashes, and Kylo’s shadow stretches long and black over the streets.

They begin to ration candles, precious sticks of tallow, and Kylo can barely remember what Hux’s face looks like in full illumination. Irresponsible, he strikes matchsticks into life when Hux is fast asleep, curled up beside him on the sagging mattress, and savors the hiss and sputter of the burning flame as he casts light over Hux’s face and tries to memorize it in pieces, the curve of a cheekbone here, the fan of ginger eyelashes there. The fire burns his fingertips before he waves it out, and Hux scolds him halfheartedly for the burnt black matches he finds littering his nightstand in the grey light of mornings.

“You’re wasting them,” Hux grumbles, and Kylo shrugs. With only one hour of sanctioned candlelight in the evenings, matches are no longer highly coveted, and he can light as many as he pleases.

“I heard,” Kylo whispers, his words barely audible over the mattress springs creaking beneath him as he lies back down and allows Hux to fold him into his arms, “I heard they’re organizing search parties for Snoke.”

The grey light of dawn starts to seep in through the gaps in the curtains, painting Hux’s bare shoulder with a cool luminescence and threading through his fiery hair with slim icy fingers that Kylo tries to chase away with his own.

“Hmm.” Hux’s sigh sends thin tendrils of steam through the air, and Kylo shivers, pulls Hux closer and the threadbare blankets tighter around them. Hux’s father is still snoring in the next room. “And?”

“Do you want to go?” The question’s been flitting through the forefront of Kylo’s mind for ages, ever since the central government had announced that they were looking for daring volunteers to brave the outside.

Hux’s eyes flicker open, boring holes into Kylo with his sharp, scrutinizing gaze. “No,” he says, slowly, but his voice is wavering at the edges. Unsure. Kylo takes it and presses the advantage.

“We could see what’s out there,” he whispers, his chilly fingers wrapping lightly around the back of Hux’s head, cupping it with a tenderness that he can rarely afford. “Aren’t you even the least bit curious?”

“No,” Hux repeats, but Kylo can sense him weakening. “There’s nothing out there.”

“How do you know?” Kylo insists. “You don’t.” His voice drops into whispers now, cajoling, pleading, hooking one of his feet around the curve of Hux’s ankle and drawing them close together until the mass of them under the blankets can’t be separated into two anymore. “You don’t,” he repeats, tucking his head into the crook of Hux’s neck and brushing his words over the strong thrumming pulse he can feel just beneath milky thin skin.

“And you don’t know there’s something,” Hux counters, but his tone is defeated. Kylo knows he’s already won, and he tries not to smile too giddily.

“I don’t want to live in the dark anymore,” Kylo mumbles, sucking a kiss into the hollow of Hux’s throat. Even in the dim light, he can make out the reddening crescent of his mouth. “I want to see you for more than one hour a day. I want to see all of you again.”

The candle stubs on Hux’s nightstand are worn down, and they both know they’ve maybe got a week left. A week of one hour days and the flickering flame over the planes of their faces now, tighter now, worried now, eyes drinking in each other hungrily as they wait for the minutes to pass.

“Give me time,” Hux breathes, his hands stroking through Kylo’s hair, pulling his face up for a kiss that tastes like tar. “To think about it.”

“Of course,” Kylo agrees, but the itchy anticipation slips into his bloodstream, racing like a wildfire, and before Hux can find it in himself to protest again, Kylo is pinning him to the sheets and trying not to gasp too loud as he loves Hux in all the ways he knows how to.

* * *

 

That morning in the ration line, Kylo pulls his worn black coat tighter around him, stamping his feet on the ground to warm them. The air feels brittle, thin, and he tries not to stare too longingly at where Hux stands in the other line, straight back and fingers curled into loose fists at his side as though the cold doesn’t bother him at all. His scarf is pulled up tight, looped thrice around his neck, but Kylo knows where all the bites are, can trace them through the fabric.

A young man from Sector D in Hux’s line, someone by the name of Dameron, is talking excitedly about the search parties the central offices are organizing. His voice cuts through the air like a knife as he tells anyone and everyone in the vicinity about it.

“I heard they’re going to give out food to anyone who volunteers,” he exclaims, infectiously excited. “Real food. From the stores underground. I heard there’s going to be meat.”

People’s heads start to turn, and Dameron’s smile looks like it’s going to crack his face right in half. A dark five o’clock shadow covers the sharp lines of his jaw, even though the sun isn’t halfway in the sky yet, and Kylo presses his hands against his stomach, hard, to trick it into feeling full.

“Meat? Really?” The whispers start up as the rumors go racing from one person to the next and the next. The crowd starts to hum with anticipation, and Kylo tries in vain to catch Hux’s eye. The only sign that Hux has heard is the slight tightening in his posture, small subtle signs that Kylo’s learned long ago to recognize with his eyes and beneath his hands. “We should sign up.”

Dameron shuffles to the front of the rations line, his hands held out eagerly for the bowl of thin morning porridge, and before Kylo can reach out to ask him anything, he’s traipsing away through the snow, his stained tin bowl gripped tightly in his clutch. He wants to shout to Hux, wants to tell him that they should sign up before it’s too late, but Hux’s father is standing right beside him, stern and forbidding in the grim light of day, and Kylo doesn’t want to take his chances.

At the front of the rations line, he holds out his bowl, tries not to frown in disgust as the thin greyish white sludge splats into the bottom of the dish. It’s tasteless, bland, the texture reminiscent of wet cotton, but Kylo struggles it down anyway, burning warm in the gaping hollow of his stomach. When he looks over, Hux and his father are already gone.

* * *

 

“You’re not really considering it, are you, Ben?” Leia asks Kylo, not unkindly, a note of motherly concern in her voice. His father stiffens beside her, but doesn’t say anything, and Kylo wonders if Han is considering going, too. “It’s dangerous out there.”

“Why?” he asks, before he can stop himself. “What’s out there that could be so bad?”

Leia frowns. The candle is guttering out from its puddle of hardened wax on the side of the table, sputtering, the wick popping and hissing. The bin only has four more left, and Kylo wonders how long it will be before he never sees his parents’ faces in their home again.

“You don’t know what’s out there,” Leia replies, smoothly, turning away. “I don’t want you going.”

“Listen to your mother,” Han pipes in, and Kylo wonders how long it will be before the wolf living behind his father’s eyes starts to howl, starts to want to run away. Even the very promise of meat is intoxicating; Kylo cannot remember the last time the heady rich flavor filled his mouth.

“Fine,” Kylo grumbles, but he does not know how long his promise will hold. Promises are precious because they can be broken, and Kylo has a scraping feeling in the back of his mind whispering that he shatters everything he touches, that this will be no different, but tries to force the thought out of his head before Leia can see it playing over his eyes.

* * *

 

The search party leaves the very next week, eight more smudged out calendar boxes past. Kylo recognizes Dameron and Finn from Sector D, wrapped around with thick clothing, all the holes patched up, weighted down with heavy backpacks and the canvas rolls of sleeping bags whose linings look reinforced, stuffed with fresh new battings of wool. The sight makes Kylo feel warmer already, fueled with jealousy. The two of them are laughing, making cheery jokes that have no place in front of the cold wire starkness of the fences. The rest of the party’s faces are grim, chapped with the wind that’s started to kick up, and they shift the weight of their packs from shoulder to shoulder as the gates are dragged open with rusty groans and squeaks that make Kylo clench his teeth tight together.

“These brave young men and women,” a city official announces, his voice nearly swept away in the breeze, “have kindly volunteered to go and look for our resident candle maker, Mr. Snoke. Please give them your best wishes, and may you return successful!”

A ragged, rousing cheer rises up from the surrounded crowd as the first of the party members slips through the gap in the fences. Kylo holds his breath, burning in his lungs, watching as the remaining members slip outside, and he doesn’t breathe easy again until they’ve already disappeared into little specks on the horizon. They haven’t been smitten down, haven’t been attacked by wild animals, not yet at least, and Kylo thinks that he might be willing to take his chances.

* * *

 

“Did you see them today?” Kylo whispers, curled into Hux’s arms, their sticky skin drying close together in the way he loves best. The scent of Hux’s body rises sweaty, salty, bitterly real in the thin air, and Kylo takes deep breaths, trying to memorize it as best he can. The last of Hux’s candles have burned out today, and he feels for Hux’s face in the dark with his hands, tries to reconstruct all the muscle and sinew and put it into a picture of the Hux he knows when they’re alone together. “Did you see them leaving?”

“It was hard to miss,” Hux grunts, shifting on the mattress. The baleful moon peeps into the gaps in the ragged curtains, and Kylo places his hands where the light pools in the hollows of Hux’s clavicles, where it presses its glaring beams in the tight gauntness of Hux’s cheeks. “And what of it?”

“We missed our chance,” Kylo whispers, tracing a fingertip down the middle of Hux’s chest, lingering over his heart as though he can reach in and scoop it out.

“Our chance to what?” Hux asks, bitterly, his hand curling into a loose fist against the small of Kylo’s back. “Our chance to what, exactly, Kylo?”

“To leave, of course,” Kylo breathes. “To be ourselves. To love each other.”

“Oh? Is that what this is about?” Hux asks, and Kylo’s heart skips a beat, mind already racing furiously ahead to the scenario where Hux might tell him he doesn’t love him, where Hux might tell him he’s just another warm body in a series of warm bodies that mean nothing. It doesn’t come, and Kylo wonders if he prefers the brittle silence that stretches out between them.

Hux sighs. “You already know that I do,” he murmurs. “It’s not about a lack of affection, more a lack of opportunity.”

“Do you expect me to do this forever?” Kylo asks, but it’s a rhetorical question. “Do you expect me to keep sneaking in after your father’s asleep, and then sneaking out before the rations lines are opened?”

“Not forever,” Hux promises, but Kylo knows he doesn’t mean it, and he curls into the side of the mattress away from Hux, trying to ignore the cold that seeps into him. Hux sighs, a heavy sound that rattles its way through Kylo’s soul, and Kylo can hear the sound of Hux striking a match, the tap tap shuffle of Hux tapping out a flimsy rolled cigarette from a leftover packet from the black market trades. The scent of smoke fills the room.

* * *

 

The search party doesn’t come back, and tensions start to run higher than ever before. The citizens of Sector D are incensed, asking where their sons and daughters have gone, but no answers are forthcoming. The candle maker is all but forgotten, the anger burning bright enough to make up for the absence of his guttering light.

More search parties are organized, more people willing to take their chances in exchange for warm blankets and sturdy clothes and three cans of meat, and Kylo can read Hux’s guilt and apology in the way he holds out his hand to Kylo across the rations lines and asks him if he wants to volunteer.

Kylo takes his hand, the first time in daylight, and ignores the muted rage of Hux’s father and Han and Leia’s carefully averted gazes as he says a firm desperate yes. He wants to volunteer.


	3. Recapitulation

Dameron was right, as it turns out; the packs that Hux and Kylo are handed as members of the search party. The packs are heavy, weighted down with coveted cans of meat and vegetables clinking together in the bottom of the canvas bags, and the excitement at the prospect of something to finally fill up the cavern in his aching body is only barely drowned out by the black eye and split lip Hux is sporting.

“What happened here?” he asks, once they’re outside again, the crisp winter air like needles in their lungs. He lifts a hand up to trace delicately around the blooming darkness, the swell of Hux’s cheek, skirting across tender skin and frowning at Hux’s responding wince.

“You know what happened,” Hux mutters, shouldering his pack and adjusting the weight of the reinforced sleeping bag on his back. Kylo’s lost for words; he’s well aware Brendol Hux has a temper, flaring and raging like the one burning deep inside his son, but never before has the ugliness looked so glaring.

Kylo’s parents are among the crowd that sees them off, and despite it all, Kylo looks deep into his father’s eyes and sees regret, a wishfulness and a wistfulness for the open air just beyond the fences. His mother is clinging tight to his father with an iron grip that wrinkles Han’s sleeve tight, and Kylo swallows roughly, looking away, looking into the diamonds of barbed wire to where the world disappears into nothing and everything at once. It’s dizzying, intoxicating, and Kylo reaches out to grip at Hux’s hand to steady himself, smooth in his palm.

The clumps of dry grass, coated with frost, shatter beneath the soles of their shoes as they make their way to the gates. Kylo never lets go of Hux’s hand, and his grip only tightens once they’re outside, keeping the both of them grounded. He turns his gaze to the east, where the sun is still rising, heaving its heavy sluggish body into the sky with trembling arms that shake the clouds, and he wonders if he and Hux, too, can disappear.

* * *

 

The members that comprise this search party are unfamiliar to Kylo, and he brushes off their inquisitive glances towards his and Hux’s joined hands. Their breath spills out in small silver puffs that disperse across their cheeks, snow crunching beneath their feet as they traipse towards the distant haze of treetops that they can make out just over the horizon. An ache starts to set up camp in Kylo’s back, an invigorating strain in his legs as he hauls himself up the brief inclines in the terrain, and when he looks back, the city has all but faded into a smear in the distance. The jagged ceilings of the buildings look rounded out, the fences a mere glimmer in the light, and Kylo takes a moment to catch his breath, wondering if Han and Leia are still looking. Their shadows stretch long across the land, painting the milky ground with dark.

Hux’s cheeks are flushed and rosy with the cold and the efforts of their exertions, and it is all Kylo can do to resist kissing him. Hux’s lips are drawn into a tight line, unapproachable, and Kylo knows better, leaves Hux be.

“We’ll set up camp here,” a woman named Phasma from the Foundry district announces, the self-appointed leader of the group. The sun is sinking low in the west, and Kylo’s breath is running ragged in his lungs. They’ve just reached the shelter of the first trees on the outskirts of the forest, and their branches hang black and imposing overhead, laden heavy with snow that threatens to spill over in large clumps at the slightest breath. “We’ll rotate watches every hour.” Here, she turns to Kylo and Hux. “You two will take the first one, and Mitaka and Devereaux will relieve you in precisely one hour.”

Kylo nods, sharp, quick, and huddles down next to Hux as the rest of their group settles down to rest. Sleeping bags unroll with warm sounding thumps, the rustling of bodies nestling into the reinforced fleece and wool warmth. Hux’s gaze sweeps clinically over the land, back, and Kylo watches Hux as he reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out a packet of cigarettes and matches. The acrid scent of smoke, familiar and bittersweet all in one, brings tears to Kylo’s eyes as Hux inhales deeply. The moonlight shines bright off the banks of snow, lighting up the landscape with eerie luminescence.

All of Kylo’s senses are on edge, and every crackle of dry branch, every snuffling snore from another member of the search party behind them, has him jumping.

“Relax,” Hux mumbles, reaching out to place a hand over Kylo’s. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“But what if there is?” Kylo wants to know. “What if Dameron and the others never came back because something got them?”

Hux snorts, blowing a stream of cigarette smoke out of his pursed mouth. “You sound like a child, Solo,” he mocks, gently, but Kylo can tell his heart isn’t in it. “Don’t you think if something wanted to get us, it already would have?”

Kylo swallows, casting a peremptory glance over his sleeping charges, lost in abandon. They’re helpless, defenseless, and Hux is right, always has been. If something, anything, wanted to attack them, it would be perfectly at liberty too. After all, he and Hux are just two young men barely out of the cusp of adolescence, the hunger in their bellies only just matched by the hunger for adventure.

“I guess so,” Kylo whispers back, but that doesn’t stop his shoulders from stiffening with every cracking branch and distant fall of drifts of snow. His heartbeat pounds furiously alive in his ears, and he takes deep breaths that burn his lungs with the chill, trying to assure himself that there is nothing out here and yet unsure if that is the answer he truly wants to hear.

* * *

 

When Mitaka and Devereaux come to relieve them of their watch, Kylo jumps up with relief and tugs Hux to his feet to find a clear patch of ground to spread out their sleeping bags.

“Can I sleep with you?” Kylo ventures to ask, hesitant, watching Hux’s hands untie and unroll his bag. Hux peers up at him, his freckles in sharp relief under the pale light.

“What, scared of sleeping alone?” Hux asks, but his voice has no venom in it, and he pulls off his boots and slips into the flannel-lined bag without a response. Kylo kneels by Hux, uncertain, unsure, his knees starting to ache, until Hux sighs and lifts the flap of the sleeping bag just a hair. An invitation by any other name, and Kylo knows to accept it before Hux changes his mind. He tugs off his boots quickly, setting them neatly in a pair before wriggling into the bag next to Hux. It’s a tight fit, but the squeeze makes Kylo feel warm, secure, and he’s hardly surprised when he feels Hux’s hand nudging between his thighs.

“What are you doing?” he asks, belatedly; Hux already has the zip of his pants undone, reaching into them to stroke at the velvet skin of Kylo’s cock, which is starting to twitch with interest.

“I’m granting your request,” Hux states, generously. The moonlight makes the intensity of his gaze all the more piercing, and Kylo swallows roughly as tendrils of heat arrow their way into the pit of his belly, pooling rough and knotted under Hux’s touch. “You wanted to sleep with me, didn’t you?”

“I meant really sleep,” Kylo whispers, but his voice cracks at the edges as Hux shoves himself closer, tighter against Kylo. The sleeping bag is suddenly much too hot, and Kylo gasps in the relief of chilled air as Hux’s hand twists and strokes and pumps him.

“Shh,” Hux breathes, nudging his head into the crook of Kylo’s neck and laving the slender skin with bites that will blossom rosy in the morning. “People are sleeping.”

Kylo gnaws worriedly at the swell of his lower lip, biting it flushed and swollen as Hux’s hand works him over. He can feel the insistent weight of Hux’s cock nudging against his thigh, and his hands reach down to fumble blindly in the bag, struggling with the button and zip of Hux’s pants. Hux’s breath is searing against his skin, and his cock spills into Kylo’s hand, burning in a way that makes Kylo believe that he’ll never be cold ever again.

“Come here,” Hux hisses, his voice raspy and rough, and he hooks one of his legs around one of Kylo’s, bringing their cocks flush together. Kylo whines roughly, trying to choke it back; from across the clearing where they’ve set up, he can hear someone’s snores stop, and he holds his breath tight in his chest even while Hux ruts slick against him, letting it spill from burning lungs only when the snores start up again.

“Hux,” he breathes, syllables a gasp, and Hux seems to know what he needs. He reaches up to thread fingers through Kylo’s dark curls, brings Kylo’s mouth down to meet his own. Kylo tastes Hux, masked beneath the acid smoke and the slight sick sweet tang of blood crusted over Hux’s chapped skin, and he spills his moans deep into Hux’s throat as Hux’s hips move furious, frantic, punishing pace against his own. Sweat beads on Kylo’s forehead, and he can barely drag in enough air to breathe as his hands work Hux’s long sleeved shirt up, palms massaging circles into burning skin and long fingers tweaking nipples into rosy peaks.

“Hux,” he gasps against the tight seal of Hux’s mouth on his own, “Hux, I’m coming, I’m going to –“ Hux’s tongue licks into his mouth again, a curl of warmth wriggling into him, and Kylo’s hips jerk forward, once, twice, thrice, spilling over the planes of Hux’s abdomen, and he feels more than hears Hux’s grunt against his throat as Hux comes in tight spurts between them, one of his hands darting down to catch the mess as best he can in the curve of his hand.

Hux’s palm and fingers are sticky when he draws his hand out of the sleeping bag, breaths ragged pants, watching through heavy lidded eyes as Kylo reaches out to press kiss-bitten lips against Hux’s stained fingers. His tongue laves across Hux’s skin, cleaning him off; Hux is bitter, real, and Kylo relishes the taste.

“You made a mess of me,” Hux states, his hand darting into the sleeping bag again, presumably to collect the rapidly drying pearls on his abdomen. Kylo cleans these, too, the taste of himself bittersweet. “Are you satisfied now?”

“I am,” Kylo agrees, and Hux rolls his eyes in a manner that Kylo has long ago learned to recognize as affection before he allows Kylo to wrap his arms around him and fall asleep.

* * *

 

Mitaka and Devereaux fall asleep roughly halfway through their shift, and so are not aware of the curious cracklings of snow underfoot. The shadows shift through the trees, and the candlemaker watches the search party silently. His eyes find Hux and Kylo, curled together in exhausted slumber at the edge of the clearing.

Shreds of Dameron’s reinforced coat curl together, crusty rags in the bottom of the candlemaker’s pack, and he makes a swift retreat through the dark, slender trees, taking care to brush away his tracks as he carefully tucks scraps of stained fabric against trunks, under roots, deeper in the forest that he has already learned by heart.

* * *

 

The forest goes on for miles, and halfway through the next day, the search party has already lost track of the open air behind them. The trees begin to crowd thicker together, trunks of rotten wood split open and black, too damp for fires, and they split cold cans of meat and vegetables at noon, gulping down white snow that nearly burns their mouths with the chill.

Phasma outlines a search plan, promising in a strong voice that’s lost among the trees that no one will be left behind, that they will find the previous search parties, or what’s left of them, and they’ll be home within two weeks if all goes according to plan. Kylo only half listens to her words, and follows Hux obediently as Hux sets off in one direction, slashing marks into the trees with a sharp knife. Sap oozes sticky onto the blade, and Kylo wonders how much longer it will take for the woods to burst into bloom.

He wonders if he and Hux will make it through to then. He has no intention of returning to the city, trapped and caged behind four flimsy walls, and can only hope that Hux will acquiesce to his requests. The edges of Hux’s black eye are turning a sickly yellow color.

* * *

 

The woman had promised two weeks, the candlemaker thinks to himself as he examines the deep gashes the man with the fiery hair had slashed into the tree trunks. Two weeks wasn’t very much time, and the ration supplies he’d gotten from the last search parties were running low.

Perhaps it is time to return to the city, his new batches of waxy candles in tow. He would be revered, praised, a hero and a god for returning to the citizens in their time of need. He’d have them all under his thumb.

Yes. Perhaps it is time to return, he thinks to himself. There will be enough candles for everyone, for ages.

* * *

 

It is nearing the end of the first week, and the rations are almost half gone, when Mitaka announces that his search team has found traces of Dameron and the others. Kylo’s ears perk up at this, and he looks over his tin can lid at where Mitaka is standing self-importantly in the center of the clearing, holding up scraps of dark red fabric and pointing in the general direction of where he’d just come from.

Phasma applauds him for his efficiency and announces to all smaller search teams that they will now be concentrating their efforts in that particular direction.

Hux’s bruise is starting to fade, and Kylo had admired the beauty of his face and freckled, milky panels of skin as Hux had rode him to a furious orgasm only just that morning, when birdsong laced heady through the air and the sky was still grey with predawn. Another day gone, and his hand had curled around the swell of Hux’s hip, leaving five-fingered bruises that Hux pressed back into eagerly, his cock bobbing slick between his thighs, eager for gratification and twitching in Kylo’s grasp as Kylo had reached out to stroke Hux to completion.

Hux had never been more beautiful, and Kylo had admired the arch of his back, the curve of his mouth, the taut flat planes of his stomach, luminescent and creamy in the soft light.

It is the first time he has seen Hux so vulnerable, collapsing with heaving pants into Kylo’s arms, and the first rays of sunlight filtering through the branches had stroked their ways into Hux’s hair like fire.

The snow and blanket of decaying vegetation left over from the autumn crunch softly underfoot as they head in the direction indicated. Mitaka is right, unerringly so; as they venture further north? South? Kylo’s lost track of the direction of the sunlight, bouncing off the snow and into his eyes, they find more and more scraps of cloth, stiff from the cold and stained with something whose identity Kylo does not particularly wish to uncover.

Their breath steams like so many clouds of crystals in the air, and Hux reaches out to clutch at his wrist, pulling him back from the edge of a steep slope Kylo hadn’t even realized had been beneath his toes. Smoke curls black in thin streams from a patch of woods only a few miles away from the ridge where Kylo and Hux are standing, and at first Kylo thinks it is a fire.

But no, it is too controlled, too small to be a wildfire, and he hardly needs Hux to point it out to him.

“Do you think it’s them?” he asks, his voice breathless, heady, hopeful.

Hux shrugs, nonchalant. “Who knows?” he says, calling back over his shoulder to Phasma, who comes hurrying over with determination sparkling in her eyes. She congratulates Hux and Kylo for breaking upon what she is sure is the next clue in a series of clues, and the next few days find them slipping down into the valley, Kylo’s muscles sore and knotted from exertion and the tight fit of the two of them in a sleeping bag made only for one.

That, and the way Hux loves him, in a way he’s never seen before, that’s only made more beautiful by the light and crisp clean air that Kylo is drunk on, hour after hour after hour.

He never wants to return.

* * *

 

The smoke smells bitter, galling, and Kylo has to struggle not to cough as it fills his lungs with tar as they cautiously approach the ramshackle lean-to shelter where the smoke is burbling out from a crack in the roof. Peering through the cracks of the shelter reveal no one; the scattered shine of serrated sharp tin can lids and rows and rows and rows of waxy white candles that gleam dully in the light.

“It’s got to be Snoke,” Kylo says, but Hux has already deduced this for himself, and he’s already poking and prodding all around the shelter, trying to look for any clues as to where the candlemaker might have gone. The voices of the other members of the search party filter through the trees as they scout out through the surrounding forest, and soon Kylo ceases to hear them at all.

The light barely filters in through the cracks and chinks in the crude sticks of wood that make up the lean-to, and Kylo has to duck to crawl into the small, tight, smoky space. The charred scent is overwhelming, and he holds his breath, examining the loose artifacts of the candlemaker’s presence. The candles are smooth and squat in the curves of his hands, their wicks standing at attention, a grey pallor that seems to defy the light.

“Kylo!” Hux’s voice is faint, and Kylo nearly bangs his forehead on the doorframe as he hurries out. The light is blinding after the darkness in the shed, and he whirls around, disoriented, trying to track the sound of Hux’s voice. “Come here!”

Hux’s syllables are shaking apart, and an icy spike of fear lodges its way into Kylo’s heart. When he finally makes his way to where Hux is standing, almost hidden by the trees, adrenaline is running fast through his bloodstream.

“Oh,” he breathes, his gaze arrowing down to where Hux’s is fixed, fast on the ground beneath their feet. “Oh.”

The earth is loose here, its loamy texture soft beneath their soles, and Hux has taken it upon himself to dig up the ground’s secrets. Sweat shines on Hux’s forehead, and his cheek has a smear of dirt where he’d rubbed it away. His hands are stained.

Dameron’s face peers out from the soil, and Kylo has to fight the urge to gag. He works against it, his hands plunging into the loose soil, scrabbling at the dirt as his fingers tear loose clumps and clods away. The collar of a shirt, ripped, stained, and Kylo wills the exhaustion in his limbs to numb his mind so that he will not have to think about the way Dameron’s skin is shredded, the way large chunks of him have gone missing, and there is something out here, something that can –

A thud, then, and Hux crumples beside him, eyes closed, and Kylo has half a second to look up and meet the candlemaker’s eyes. There’s another half second of disconnect as his gaze darts to the knife in Snoke’s hand, like the one Kylo has tucked away in the bottom of his pack.

A lancet of pain darts deep into the pit of his belly, the blade flashing silver and crimson against him, and he’s never seen himself so red, not even Hux has this much red in him, spurting out across Snoke’s waxy skin and the earth.

Kylo closes his eyes tight, willing breath into his lungs for a scream. Rough hands are on his shoulders, and he wonders for a moment if it’s Hux trying to wake him up from a nightmare, because surely that’s what this is, and the pain driving bolts into him will fade away when he opens his eyes again.

He never does.

* * *

 

The candlemaker sighs, stretching, joints popping as he drags the last of them to the center of the clearing. Eight in total, and he hums tuneless to himself while the new knife he’s plucked from the bottom of Kylo’s pack flashes in the still air. It’ll take a few days to render out the fat, another two to shape the candles and wait for them to cool.

He won’t even have to bury these ones, he thinks gladly to himself. No one will come looking for them, not after he returns and brings light back to the world. Their bodies will sink into the soil, claimed by nature, eight, twelve years maybe, and no one will be the wiser. And if they do send more out to look for them…well, perhaps it’s just a confirmation that there are monsters in the night.

The knife makes soft schicking sounds in his hand, and blood stains the earth dark.

* * *

 

“The candlemaker’s back!”

The cries ring through the city, bouncing off the corners of the buildings, and Leia drags Han out of bed into the chilly air of the predawn morning to welcome the candlemaker back, to praise whatever higher beings may be that he’s back safely, that he has new candles to shed light on their lives again to bring them out of their eternal darkness.

He looks thinner, more worn down, but anyone would after months spent outside, and Leia thanks him profusely, her worry over Kylo pushed to the back of her mind, as Snoke smiles gauntly at her and piles waxy candles into her waiting hands.

**Author's Note:**

> > send me your kylux requests @ misayawriting.tumblr.com


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